No. 60. More wistfully, by many times, Than in small poets splay-foot rimes, I thought th'hadst scorned to budge a step Then what has quelled thy stubborn heart? Nor did I ever winch or grudge it, For thy dear sake. (quoth she) Mum budget. For who would grudge to spend his blood in Hoc est quod palles? Cur quis non prandeat, hoc est? -PERS. Sat. iii. SEVERAL kinds of false wit that vanished in the 1 1 1711, that vanished and disappeared in the refined ages. refined ages of the world, discovered themselves again in the times of monkish ignorance. As the monks were the masters of all that little learning which was then extant, and had their whole 5 lives entirely disengaged from business, it is no wonder that several of them, who wanted genius for higher performances, employed many hours in the composition of such tricks in writing as required much time and little capacity. I have seen 10 half the Æneid turned into Latin rimes by one of the beaux esprits of that dark age; who says, in his preface to it, that the Æneid wanted nothing but the sweets of rime to make it the most perfect work in its kind. I have likewise seen an hymn 15 in hexameters to the Virgin Mary, which filled a whole book, though it consisted but of the eight following words; 20 Tot, tibi, sunt, Virgo, dotes, quot, sidera, cælo. Thou hast as many virtues, O Virgin, as there are stars in heaven. 2 The poet rung the changes upon these eight several words, and by that means made his verses almost as numerous as the virtues and the stars which they celebrated. It is no wonder that men who had so much time upon their hands, did not only restore all the antiquated pieces of false wit, but enriched the world with inventions of their own. It was to 25 this age that we owe the production of anagrams, which is nothing else but a transmutation of one word into another, or the turning of the same set of letters into different words; which may change night into day, or black into white, if Chance, who 2 1711, rung the chimes. is the goddess that presides over these sorts of composition, shall so direct. I remember a witty author, in allusion to this kind of writing, calls his rival, who (it seems) was distorted, and had his limbs set in places that did not properly belong to 5 them, "The anagram of a man." When the anagrammatist takes a name to work upon, he considers it at first as a mine not broken up, which will not show the treasure it contains till he shall have spent many hours in the search of it: 10 for it is his business to find out one word that conceals itself in another, and to examine the letters in all the variety of stations in which they can possibly be ranged. I have heard of a gentleman who, when this kind of wit was in fashion, endeavoured 15 to gain his mistress's heart by it. She was one of the finest women of her age, and known by the name of the Lady Mary Boon.3 The lover not being able to make any thing of Mary, but certain liberties indulged to this kind of writing converted it 20 into Moll; and after having shut himself up for half a year, with indefatigable industry produced an anagram. Upon the presenting it to his mistress, who was a little vexed in her heart to see herself degraded into Moll Boon, she told him, to his in- 25 finite surprise, that he had mistaken her surname, for that it was not Boon, but Bohun. Effusus labor. Ibi omnis The lover was thunderstruck with his misfortune, 3 1711, and was called by the name of Mary Boon. (1711) to "known by the name of the Lady Mary Boon." Corrected in No. 61, insomuch that in a little time after he lost his senses, which indeed had been very much impaired by that continual application he had given to his anagram. 5 The acrostic was probably invented about the same time with the anagram, though it is impossible to decide whether the inventor of the one or the other were the greater blockhead.* The simple acrostic is nothing but the name or title of a person 10 or thing made out of the initial letters of several verses, and by that means written, after the manner of the Chinese, in a perpendicular line. But besides these there are compound acrostics, when the principal letters stand two or three deep. I have 15 seen some of them where the verses have not only been edged by a name at each extremity, but have had the same name running down like a seam through the middle of the poem. There is another near relation of the anagrams 20 and acrostics, which is commonly called a chronogram. This kind of wit appears very often on many modern medals, especially those of Germany, when they represent in the inscription the year in which they were coined. Thus we see on a medal of Gus25 tavus Adolphus the following words, CHRISTVS DUX ERGO TRIVMPHVS. If you take the pains to pick the figures out of the several words, and range them in their proper order, you will find they amount to MDCXVVVII, or 1627, the year in 30 which the medal was stamped: for as some of the letters distinguish themselves from the rest, and 4 5 1711, was the greater blockhead. 1711, where the principal letters. 6 1711, commonly known by the name of. overtop their fellows, they are to be considered in a double capacity, both as letters and as figures. Your laborious German wits will turn over a whole dictionary for one of these ingenious devices. A man would think they were searching after an apt 5 classical term; but instead of that, they are looking out a word that has an L, an M, or a D in it. When therefore we meet with any of these inscriptions, we are not so much to look in them for the thought, as for the year of the Lord. 8 7 ΙΟ The Bouts Rimez were the favourites of the French nation for a whole age together, and that at a time when it abounded in wit and learning. They were a list of words that rime to one another, drawn up by another hand, and given to a poet, 15 who was to make a poem to the rimes in the same order that they were placed upon the list: the more uncommon the rimes were, the more extraordinary was the genius of the poet that could accommodate his verses to them. I do not know any greater 20 instance of the decay of wit and learning among the French (which generally follows the declension of empire) than the endeavouring to restore this foolish kind of wit. If the reader will be at the trouble to see examples of it, let him look into the 25 new Mercure Galant; where the author every month gives a list of rimes to be filled up by the ingenious, in order to be communicated to the public in the Mercure for the succeeding month. That for the month of November last," which now lies 30 before me, is as follows. |